Over 68 percent, or 833 million, of Indians still live in villages despite a sharp decline recorded for the first time in the overall growth rate of the country’s rural population, according to the census data released Friday.
According to the rural urban distribution of population census, of the 1.21 billion Indians, 377 crore stay in urban areas.
The census data on the rural-urban break-up of population, which is considered very useful for policy-making, was released by union Home Secretary R.K. Singh.
Registrar General of India and Census Commissioner C. Chandramouli, sharing the data highlights with reporters, said that it was for the first time since independence that the absolute increase in population is more in urban areas than in rural areas.
“The rural-urban distribution is 68.84 percent and 31.16 percent, respectively,” Chandramouli said.
He said urbanisation has increased to 31.16 percent from 27.81 percent in the 2001 census and the proportion of rural population declined to 68.84 percent from 72.19 percent in 2001.
He said the population growth in rural areas has declined over the years but in urban areas it has remained almost the same.
Uttar Pradesh tops the list with 155.11 million urban population or 18.6 percent of the overall followed by Bihar with 92.07 million and West Bengal with 62.21 million.
Sikkim with only 450,000 urban population or 0.1 percent of the total is at the bottom preceded by Mizoram with 520,000 and Goa with 550,000.
Maharashtra tops the list having the maximum number of people in urban areas 50.8 million